


Corruption of a Magister

by JacksHorriblePA (orphan_account)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Corruption, Dalish Inquisitor, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Lyrium Addiction, M/M, Partner Betrayal, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21910606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/JacksHorriblePA
Summary: When Corypheus’ influence is so undeniable that even the man closest to The Inquisitor falls victim, judgment must come to pass.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 12





	Corruption of a Magister

**Author's Note:**

> This was a random little Angst!fic idea that came to mind at, like, 2am. So I just ran with it. It turned out pretty alright considering it had no real direction to begin with!
> 
> Enjoy!

Skyhold’s hall was utterly silent. Devoid of speech and any and all sound alike. Not a person spoke nor moved from their place on the floor. Those who gathered and looked on did so in confusion, sadness, and anguish. Some, even, in anger. 

The ambassador’s fingers trembled. Her mouth twitched as she tried to form the words to convey the information. It had to come from someone, and given the circumstances, she cursed the vile gods that had put her here and given her this burdensome responsibility.   
The eyes of the many that looked upon her told her of the severity of this. And the eyes of one conveyed the most sadness to her even without a glance. 

“My lord, Inquisitor,” Josephine clutched the board in her hand with a vise-like grip, trembling with both sorrow and anger. “I present to you—“ she locked eyes with the man kneeling before her and the wide hall of people. Most importantly, before the Inquisitor. “I… I am sorry….” 

Someone from within the crown, unknowing of this man’s crime but hungry for some semblance of justice, yelled. “Get on with it!” 

Josephine closed her eyes and sighed heavily. She steeled herself and refused to look any further at the man she once knew, now on display for judgment. For her heart did not hurt for that man himself, but for the leader that she loves, who loves that kneeling man more that Josephine herself could ever comprehend. 

“I present to the Inquisitor, Dorian Pavus.” Tears begged to fall, throats closed and eyes burned. Knots were woven within throats and words threatened to fail before even being spoken. “He is here for the crime of betrayal to The Inquisition, as he allied with The Venatori under the guise of bettering The Inquisition’s cause.” 

Hushed whispers fell amongst the crowd. Not a soul within Skyhold, nor almost anywhere within Orlais and Ferelden, could claim to not know this man. Tevinter knew him for his lineage, the family that he’d left behind and the bloodline he would surely disgrace. The south, however, knew him for his relation to one man, quite possibly the most important man in Thedas. 

“The people have…” Josephine looked over her papers with a face of grief, as she already knew what was to come. “Have called for a hanging, matched only by a life imprisonment. Though that is, of course, for you to decide, Inquisitor.” 

The room’s eyes went where Josephine’s would not, to the man who would sit atop his throne and judge biasedly. 

Countless judgments at Skyhold had been held, yet none had ever seen this man. As the man that Skyhold has known to judge would do so with his whole face, confidently, unabashedly, and never claim to be the definitive right hand of justice, but that he would always deliver it honestly, and without faltering. This was not that man. 

The pale elf was uncharacteristically silent. His body was tense yet his posture lazy and withdrawn. He looked like he’d missed a week’s worth of sleep and as though his meals had been rationed elsewhere. This man looked at the crowds of loyal citizens like they were monsters, but even more so at the man that kneeled beneath his throne. 

Josephine mustered an impossible courage to look The Inquisitor Lavellan in his face. “Your verdict, Inquisitor?” Yet her voice never rose above a whisper.

The purple bags under Lavellan’s eyes made his pupil’s pop, and the white outside his irises looked especially red. His gaze held no weight anymore, like if he’d look at you, it seemed as though he was looking through you. His eyes felt as disbelieving as his heart. 

“My… my verdict? Yes, I— I suppose….” He shook his head slightly, rubbing his eyes with both palms as he tried to avoid peering glances around the room. 

“And your verdict is… Inquisitor?” Josephine found a will to watch him falter, and her concern for him only grew. 

“My— my verdict.” Lavellan looked to be searching within himself for the meaning of those words. His mind was scouring every last inch and dark corner of his consciousness, trying with the might of a god to find an answer. But a judgment… to this man? There wasn’t one inside his mind. 

His eyes glazed over with shimmering emotions. He opened his mouth to speak but his lips twitched and his throat only croaked. The crowd’s collective voice arose within his mind and his ears perked, listing to their verdict. 

_“He’s the one from Tevinter…. that’s him! That’s the man that fancied The Inquisitor…. He’s corrupted him…. He’ll take our leader away from us…. He deserves death.”_

Inside The Inquisitor’s mind was screams of self-destruction. Pleas to gods, both dead and living, for an answer, a reason why. Why all this had to happen. Why _him_. 

“My verdict is… I— I sentence _him_ — you, to a life in the castle’s cells.” His voice was meek and reluctant. 

The crowd’s hive-mind voice sprung to life with both pleas of reconsideration and denouncements of their authority. The Inquisitor— _The Inquisition_ — has never been gentle with spies or those who would betray The Inquisition. So why now? 

“For the crimes of working as a spy within our ranks, and within _my_ inner circle… I am hereby sentencing you to… to life imprisonment.” 

Josephine chose not to look at either of the two men. The crowd had faded into insignificance long ago, but those two men…. One of them was to decide the fate of Thedas, and the other had sealed it in one act of betrayal. The Dalish decider of everyone’s fate would spiral after this, surely. The air around him would never breathe the same. 

Lavellan gripped the arms of his dragon-bone throne and slowly uprighted himself. His feet were slow and his body timid, reluctant to act any more than it had to. He breached the gap between a kneeling Dorian, down the steps of his throne’s pedestal, and merely inches away from his once requited lover. 

“Why… why would you do this?” His voice was a whisper beneath what the crowd could hear, yet they saw as his eyes spoke more than his mouth ever could. “What did I do? Was… was it _me_?” 

Dorian shook his head slowly from side to side, then, quicker. “You naive young man. You have no idea what is to come, do you?” 

The crowd leaned closer to hear the prisoner’s words and Lavellan did the same, trying desperately to hear his _vhennan_. 

“You've never known the truths of this world.” Dorian’s tone was a determined whisper. “But he will— _he_ will show us.” 

Lavellan shook his head desperately. “No— I’m not hearing you. You’re not saying this to me, you can’t… you can’t be.” 

A laugh began to bellow out from within his chest, echoing throughout the castle’s main hall and reverberating through its corridors, past every door and up every staircase. 

Vivienne would watch from her perch and solas would put his ear to the wall. Varric would turn his gaze to the fireplace and watch its embers burn sorrowfully, and Josephine would cringe at the unprecedented volume of the man who had once preached of tact and grace to his companions. 

Dorian looked up from the floor, now holding his head up high, and laughed in The inquisitor’s face. 

“You were never in control.” His voice was loud, yelling. Lavellan flinched at each rise in octave.“You think your little _Inquisition_ could stop him. You have no idea.” 

The Inquisitor’s face twisted in agony, confused and baffled by the face of the man he once knew and loved. The man he’d once held close and boasted about his love for. The man that he’d served both physically and emotionally. Who now looked like a stranger. His face was a snarl unlike any that Lavellan had ever seen, and he couldn’t wrap his mind around where it came from or where it had been hiding this whole time. 

With a tan face, lined by popping veins of Lyrium-infused blood that screamed _corruption_ , Dorian laughed once again in the face of his _amatus_. 

“You are _pathetic_ , Inquisitor. Your army will be left in this world and _I_ will be saved. I have _seen_ it.” Dorian shook his head erratically. “You could not comprehend the future that I have seen. The skies will open to the promised city of gold and our new god will claim his throne above us all.” 

Dorian’s gaze broke away from The Inquisitor’s and he turned his head to the ceiling, as though he was peering through the heavens. “ _He_ will deliver us….” 

Lavellan cried out in disbelief. “Who… who are you?!” 

Dorian eyed the ceiling for a moment longer before his eyes closed and he sighed, suddenly calm and even. 

“I am his disciple.” 

Lavellan could see the veins in his throat popping as the one’s across his temples did. The were redder than the blood that they should be carrying and instead bright and unnatural. 

Lavellan’s cries were a low whisper. “You are not the man I love— _once_ loved.”. 

Dorian looked him in the eyes without an ounce of remorse, and Lavellan could have sworn he’d seen bright-red fluid filling the whites of his eyes. 

“And I never loved you.” 

When the sun set over Skyhold and the crowds dispersed, the halls were completely silent. Not a soul spoke The Inquisitor’s name and neither the companions nor members of the inner circle dared to disturb him inside his quarters. After a while, when the paperwork stacked up and the nobles called for meetings and negotiations, some wondered if The Inquisitor was even still living within Skyhold’s walls. 

Though every day or so, a young soldier out late enough after his training might see a pale, thin elf sneaking into the castle’s dungeon, searching still for a look of remorse somewhere within the eyes of his corrupted lover. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes, it’s real sad boy hours. I hope this gave you emotions the same way it did for me. Let me know of any mistakes or spelling errors and leave Kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
